Alfred Moses

Yes, that is correct. We are receiving $600,000 though.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We did have two positions that I believe went through decentralization and then there was one reduction at headquarters.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right I have deputy minister David Stewart and on my left Mr. Olin Lovely, assistant deputy minister of corporate services. Thank you.

Yes. I appreciate that. As I mentioned, our staff is always in contact with both College nordique and Dechinta. I believe our representative has spoken with them in the last two weeks. Any information like that… I appreciate that Members are bringing this to the table. We want to support our partners. We appreciate the work that both institutions do. There are some areas that need to be considered as well. That is the legislation that needs to be done. We also have to make sure that we are doing the things that were asked for. There was a motion in the House in the 17th Legislative Assembly...

Yes, for more clarity and more detail we'll go to Deputy Minister Stewart please.

Yes. We do have daycare operators in some of our government buildings. Currently, we give them funding of up to 50 per cent. Under the new changes, we will be subsidizing their rents, mortgage, or their rent to 75 per cent. We already offer it to people that are doing it in their own buildings or nongovernment buildings. We should be having it equal right across the board, so any daycares that are operating in our government buildings, we will be subsidizing up to 75 per cent. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do have our staff that are working with both College nordique and Dechinta. We will respond with a formal response to their proposals. This is the first time we have had a comprehensive report as such, the labour market needs assessment report that came out. To make sure that we do it right and that we do get our resources in the areas that need to be done, we have to get that action plan done first. That way we can have our program services reflect that. We will respond with the formal response to both institutions. Thank you.

Yes, some of those are reflected in the changes that we made with the northern bonus for students coming back to work and the northern grant also went up. I believe in the last session we gave a really good update on all these changes that we were making to the Student Financial Assistance program. Thank you.

Thank you, and I'm very glad the Member brought some his concerns with the daycares in the Sahtu, and following up to the statement that I gave in the House yesterday, we're looking at the fall in October to have these all put back into place, and it is so our daycares can actually sustain themselves. There is attendance based review, but also just funding that is going into utilities, the costs and maintenance, rent, and mortgage of these daycares. Those will all be coming into effect in October and I look forward to seeing the rollout of this program and we can start providing early...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we want to make sure that the jobs that we are going to have over the next 15 years… that the program services that Aurora College provides will be reflective of those jobs that are going to be needed. We will be at the table. We will be sitting with the Aurora College executive to make sure that we are working to meet the needs of the Northerners.